March 29-31

March 30-31

March 29... The Talk!! We met Cordell Thompson, a local man who got a MA at U of Chicago and came back to try to help out his home. He is another amazing source of historical knowledge and has the ability to link the historical changes to present day. His goal is to reform the island back to its original , pre-tourism state botanically so that the people here eat better and can provide local food to the tourists rather than bringing it in from other countries. They have 7000 acres of plantation that was returned to the slaves to keep and live on. There is no property title so it can’t be sold. Which means no outsiders can come in and take develop it. He has a face book site called Exumas Farmers, which explains what his goals are. This year he is planning to plant 1000 fruit trees. He is up to 400 right now.

March 30

Yesterday was Monday, right? So I polished the backsplash in the galley. You think that was easy? It’s 5 feet x four feet of stainless steel that catches all the fumes and cooking oils from the gas stove. Took almost a half hour out of my busy schedule!

We sold the water heater that we didn’t use, and replaced it with a tow-behind battery charger... like a wind generator only underwater. We looked at one of these 11 years ago when we bought the boat and hemmed and hawed and by the time we decided that it was a good idea, it was gone. So this time, we called “Matilda” right away and they needed a rivet gun to fix their sail so we helped each other out.  They are from England and heading back to the States to sell their 50 foot Hanse...what a beautiful boat. It was almost as big as our house in T. Bay!  They had a walk-around bed in the forward cabin; separate cabins for each of the two kids and a storage room that was a third cabin! Her galley and main cabin were open concept and immense!!! I just wouldn’t want to have that much sail, especially a deck sweeper, so you can’t see underneath it. And then there’s the heeling...leaning over on one side or the other.

So after lunch we went over to the beach to meet them and hand over the rivet gun and Rick and Bruce talked about the charger.  While Rick went to the bank to get him some money, I went to the Internet access place to get some more work done. Unfortunately, I didn’t have this ready so couldn’t post.  But read all you comments!

After that we went over to Sand Dollar beach to see the boaters down at that end, and have Sundowners. We met up with “Anneteak” [Alan & Marcia’s relatives] and “Free Spirit” [at the talk about iguanas] and “Blue Heavens” [the teacher organizer]. We also met and talked a long time with “Papillion” [she is a FIS Alpine ski technical delegate from Quebec]. We talked to other people too but didn’t always catch the names.  For some reason there was no TV last night o we just read for a bit and went to sleep.

March 31, 2015

The wind died and was dead cam in the middle of the night but it picked up again this morning.  I called Liz to tell her we were leaving and talk for a bit. We sure miss her and the kids!

We go off the anchor at about 9:45 and headed out. By the time we got out of the channel and into Exumas Sound, it was 11:30 and we were getting beaten up! The waves were 10 footers and there was a short period. The winds were up at 20 knots which would not have been a problem but it was on the nose! By the time we were headed on our course the waves were pitching us sideways and we were taking water over the cabin top!  This was stupid, so we turned around and headed back to Georgetown. We are now at Eddie’s Edgewater and hooked into the ‘net so I can post this and do more research! Taking Liz’s advice to sail safe! Ttyl.

Garden gnome at St. Frances marina

View of anchorage fro the deck of the marina

Lizard, not iguana

talking to Mr. Thompson

Sand dollar beach

Beach party

THe weekend Fri-Sat-Sun March 27-28-9

March 27 cont’d

I picked up the laundry from the service. For $1.50 /lb someone else did it: it’s clean and fresh and I didn’t have to waste time fighting for a machine and waiting for them to be done. I went into a Laundromat initially to check it out. All the machines were full and one woman boater was in there trying to make her machine work and snarling at the locals. A repairman was working on one of the dryers or which there were only 5.  I would have spent that much on the machines without a guarantee that they would be dry enough. Apparently the dryer was $8.00!!!

 This way someone else did it and they get paid for it. The big thing was the sheets and towels. I can do the small stuff by hand to stay on top of it. Beside we wear the same things every day so there really isn’t much. You probably didn’t need to know that. I meant bathing suits when we sail....or something similar. lol

Wow! Last night was quite the thunderstorm! It started at about 4 am. Major lightening and no sound!!! Howling winds and we swung 180 degrees on the anchor.  Yesterday afternoon when we came back to the boat we swam for awhile and scrubbed the boat bottom but it was too rough to finish so we checked the anchor and it was buried in the sand. We couldn’t see it at all. Good thing!!! After the storm we still hadn’t moved. There are supposed to be higher winds for a couple of day but we are ready to go, so we will position ourselves over to the harbour exit and leave early in the morning depending on the weather report tonight!

March 28 Saturday

This morning we left for town to pick up the propane tank and o the way we passed a cat called Amazing Grace. They were the ones leaving Bimini as we entered, so many years ago... [Just kidding but time seems to be another dimension down here!]. Anyway we stopped to see them and we ended up taking some of their kids and grandkids into the harbour. They had 10 people on board and it would have taken 3 dinghy trips, so we took the baby, his mom and his sister.

We picked up the propane tank then scouted around to find stamps and a place to deposit the p/c’s for the kids.  Then we went back to the boat and moved over to Volleyball beach.  10 years ago this was a small bar/ restaurant and some picnic tables on the beach. It’s still the same. Somewhere in the ceiling is out Thunder Bay yacht club burgee.  We had a drink while we were over there. I had a banana rum “milkshake” [bailey’s banana rum and coconut rum and a banana blended with lots of ice] and Rick had a Pina Colada. I would have thought that it would have been stronger but it was fine. We met Akula again. They are from Toronto with a 10 year old boy and another boat with three boys from northern USA. There are LOTS of kids here! SO many people doing this. Yesterday we met “Selkie” and Irish family over here. They crossed the Atlantic three years ago with three kids who are now just 10, 8, and 5. In fact, the boy Keighan, helped at the school on Friday, reading with another boy!  They are going home this summer.

We also met another couple who flew in to stay in the hotel. They own a family hardwood manufacturing business and he talked with us about escaping!  We were all standing on the edge of the water petting the sea rays!  They come to the beach to be fed and stroked...like dump bears!!  

It was another cloudy rainy day. So we came back to the oat for dinner and an early night.

Sunday March 29.

Every morning at 8:00 everyone tunes their radios to Channel 72 and we listen to the Cruisers’ Net.  It’s all about weather; who needs help; who wants information about various things like church services, groceries laundry etc. Boats coming, in boats leaving. And we managed to sell the water heater on it!

So today we are going to hear another talk at the beach at 1:00 pm about the history of the island and then attend a pig roast. We will get to talk to more boaters and see who’s been down there recently and what they have to say about the  trip down to the southern islands. It’s a very different perspective going south with foreknowledge than it was for us coming north 10 years ago. We were “virgins” and didn’t know any better. We just ploughed on and made it with no problems.

We are not sure when we will likely head out. It depends on  the weather predictions. The cruiser’s net gets weather from Chris Parker, the equivalent of “Southbound Herb”.  [Herb Helgenberg was a weatherman living in Toronto who would give cruiser’s updated weather for the places they were heading. you could subscribe to his service and get his forecast.  He retired but Chris Parker lives in the Caribbean and he does the same thing for the whole area. We are going to subscribe to his service when we get out radio SSB running.

Volleyball Ball beach is called that because there is a big sand volleyball court and lots of tables where people can at, play cards, or dominoes here,. Unfortunately it means that everyone is here at all times: kids teenagers and college age kids who are all drinking. The adults seem to have taken a break from parenting so it is very disorganized chaos and noise, and I don’t do well with that. There is also a lot of cigarette smoke which doesn’t help. 

SO we found sort of good internet and I am able to post pictures again, but I only have 80  minutes. We are at the bar in St. Francis Marina. We went to the lecture by Colin Thompson and by the time he was done they an out of pig, so I have to cook dinner ...Rats! Oh well. The lecture was worth it. 

tty asa I can get back to internet. The weather here is not very good this week...cloudy and cold... sorry, I mean less hot! :)

Tame rays looking for food

Or just strokin'

Sign post to everywhere

Parade of seagulls past the Chat n' Chill

PIc's from Georgetown, Exumas

This is an attempt to post some pics that I mis

Seagulls drinking the fresh water in the swimming pool at Peace and Plenty

Going into Lake Victoria

Storm coming... the water really is that colour

Termite nest on the nature trail at Exuma Foundation park

Frog hiding in tree to stay hydrated

Alan, Marcia and Anne

Sunset

Leaving Lake victoria

Little pale blue bldg is Eddie's ... best internet and food

tourism and Immigration office

Looking across Lake Victoria to Eddie's

sed. hopefully you haven't already seen them!

March 17-18

March 17-18

We went for fuel yesterday around noon and w couldn’t get any because there was no way to climb up the dock to access the pumps. We dinghied around all the mega-yachts looking for access when a man came off his sailboat [Toronto} to tell us to come back at high tide.  W found out that he’d been originally from London England, living in Sault Ste. Marie for while and then move to Toronto to work before retiring here two years ago living in his boat at the dock. But I digress...

We parked the dinghy and went walking to the grocery store. On the way, we passed the BASAR building (Search and Rescue) so I went in to see their operation. There were a few people in there. One Australian who was the paid administrator gave us the most info about their work; one old Englishman wanted to give me a lesson in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He looked like Michael Douglas and sounded like Alan Rickman. Am I getting old because that combination didn’t work for me?

We moved on to the BaTelCo office. All the hi-tech businesses keep their doors locked and they buzz you in! We added minutes to our phone and tried to find out about a Wi-Fi booster. No luck.  The grocery store [Super Value] was pretty expensive. I don’t know how people manage to eat here. Peanut butter was $8.00 for a small jar of Peter Pan. Kleenex was over $2.00 / box. The carrots come from Canada or California. Apples the size of cantaloupes were 99cents each but a bag of Gala were only $3.99 [trust me, that’s cheap even in the states]

After we finished shopping, we went back to the dinghy dock and OffLine’s dinghy was still there so we decided to go to the bar and wait for them. They were already there so we sat and had a couple of beers and some sweet potato fries until around 6:30.  It was St. Patrick’s Day so they were giving out green beads and serving green beer, and there was one well-built young woman wearing an “Irish” outfit. See pic!!

There is going to be a big Thunderball [James Bond] Party on Staniel Cay on March 28. And we are going to miss it! Rats! We will be in the Turks by then. We watched a mega-yacht called SKYFALL go past us yesterday, maybe going down to get ready?  This is where Casino Royale was filmed and we are sitting beside the dock of one of the small buildings built for the set. Some crazy lady lives here now and Carol is convinced she is one of the Bond women who couldn’t leave!

There are four new and different cruise ships in here today. This place must make a fortune renting out the docks to different lines and staggering the docking times.  

Today we are going to get fuel and water and think about heading out to Allans Cay.  It’s 35 miles so if the wind is not good, we may hold off until tomorrow or look at the weather. The trip down the Exumas will be on the banks in shallow water [love it!] and we can stop and swim or snorkel on the sand beaches. I’m starting to really regret agreeing to do this writing job.  I hate being on someone else’s schedule. For all you prospective retirees out there... this is GREAT! You really can get over the urge to do something useful or productive!

Ttyl.

MArch 24-27

March 24-27

You would think that it would not be difficult to keep up with things these days but we are so involved in what w are dong that sometimes the days are over before I can get to the computer. With no internet out here at the boat, and being a 10 minute dinghy ride into shore, it’s difficult to get to the ‘free’ internet. If we go to a dock it’s free but the dock isn’t; if we go to a restaurant, it’s free but you can’t sit there and not drink or eat something. Anyway...

Tuesday 24^th

 The dinghy dock is quite a ride through the anchorage to shore and you go under the road into “Lake Victoria”, which is a small “lake” or the Pond as the locals calls it, around which the town is laid out. Right inside the Pond is a long dinghy dock where all the boaters tie up for free. The Exumas Market [grocery store has installed a water station where you can get fresh water FREE. It is from a reverse osmosis system where they extract the salt from salt water. THIs is not easy to do on the scale that they are providing the water so it is incumbent upon the boaters not to waste it when filling their water jugs.

Up the dock and past the side of the building is the path to the road. Directly across from the market is the Scotia bank.  Unfortunately, we can’t swipe out debit cards at the teller’s station and have to use the ATM but there is a 7% VAT on the process so we can’t win down here! The cost of money is exorbitant! While I was in line, Rick met some people from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They are at the marina at the north end of the island. The internet is free there but its 7 miles in the wrong direction. We were going to go there but some other things happened...

The first thing we did at the bank was ask if someone could witness a document but she said no, we’d have to go to the Town administrator’s office at the police station. So we walked down there. We ended up in the Magistrate’ office and she witnessed our documents. It was to go back to the states so we could have a mailing address in the USA and a forwarding address for any mail we might get. They collect it and when there is mail they send it to Liz.

She was a very interesting woman. She had been a bank employee for 25 years and decided when she retired that she wanted to be a lawyer so she went to England; got her law degree and came back here to practice. After two years she was appointed the local magistrate!

SO we went for some groceries; walked the town; looked for internet. We were told that Eddies Edgewater Cafe had free internet so we decided to check it out. We could have taken the dinghy across the pond, but we decided to walk. It was halfway around the pond. The whole distance is about 1 1/2miles. When we got there we decided we couldn’t just sit and watch their TV and use the internet so we had lunch. It was a big piece of grilled chicken and salad. Really good! We were there for about 2 hours and I got to update everyone. One of the emails we had been from Alan Marsh...they were in Georgetown visiting and wanted to get together. [Alan and Marcia are from Georgian Yacht Club in Owen Sound.] They were visiting relatives here on a boat .We came back to the boat and called “Anneteak” but no-one was home.

March 25

Wednesday morning we listed to the cruiser’s net channel 68 where everyone gets a chance to get help, ask questions, find out who’s here, who’s leaving, get rid of stuff, find stuff... So we called in to see if anyone wants to buy the water heater. We think we have a sale. We also hard Anneteak asking for a shared ride to the airport so we knew that Alan and Marcia were leaving. After the cruiser’s net was over, we called them and they came over for a quick visit before they left to catch their taxi.

When they left we went back to town to mail Natasha’s birthday present and some post cards for the kids. They like getting ‘mail’.  So Natasha’s present fit in a half-size brown 9x12 brown envelope. From here it cost $6.50 to mail. The letter we sent to the States was 65 cents and the postcards were 50 cents or 65 cents if they were oversize. And we pay at home?

One of the things the cruiser’s net was looking for was volunteers to go to the school and help out with reading and math.  Uh oh...I’m hooked! I couldn’t go Wednesday but I am going Friday, then we have to leave in case it’s too much fun!!!

March 26

The cruiser’s net this morning talked about a special presentation being given at the Exumas Foundation Center about the iguanas in the Bahamas. There is a special group of scientists who are monitoring the development or loss of iguanas [they are an endangered species all over the world.]

I spent another two hours today researching the Turks & Caicos, and we have decided to go there and finish the job. We will leave here next week when the weather settles down some and it will take a week to get there.  I have contacted a marina there where we can put the boat and then finish the research from there.

We will hopefully be back here in Georgetown a week later. I have no idea where my next internet access will be ...probably not until we get to the Caicos Marina.  But I will document our trip and post when possible. The hardest part is keeping the connection long enough to down load the pictures, which are probably much more interesting than my ramblings!!

We went to hear the lecture tonight. We met the scientist who takes care of the iguanas on Allen’s Cay and we admitted to feeding them before we saw the sign that said “Don’t Feed the Iguanas”. They were okay with that and they invited us to help them tag and measure them in May when they go back there. So we are going to help if we can!

We also met a family on a boat that is travelling through the islands: three kids under the age of 13.  They are having a blast and working on their school work too!

March 27, 2015

Cruiser’s net this morning confirmed school today so...getting ready to go to school!!

Well, THAT was an experience!!  I started off with a kid, Elijah, who has trouble reading. He was reading a Little Bear book, about 2 grades levels below his target level. He had no trouble with the big words but the little words were his issue. Then at 11:00, 3 more kids came over and asked if they could work with me so we got a little flash card competition going for awhile, then moved to a math session with one of them.  It was quite tiring but fun. It is almost discouraging to see how little help these kids get. Someone brought over 6 desk pencil sharpeners because the class rooms didn’t have any!

So today we are picking up the laundry, getting propane tanks filled and heading back to boat.

We are going over to Volleyball beach this afternoon to a meet and greet. Hopefully b Sunday we will be on our way to the lower Bahamas.

So this may be the last post for a week or two, but keep checking. I might get lucky and hit the internet somewhere else. Here are some pics from the last few days.

Ttyl

Nassau Harbourmaster's tower

Disney cruise boat

Jake & Carol from Offline

the rock in Galliotte Cut

Entering Lake Victoria in Georgetown

Peace and Plenty Restaurant and inn